I'd suggest that most users wouldn't know the difference between urgency and impact, and, even if you clearly defined it, may not care. I have certainly told someone once that a task I'd asked him to do was "urgent but not important", but I sincerely doubt that most people would be willing to categorize themselves and/or their requests in that way. You might use a smiley slider in conjunction with "# of people impacted" slider that goes from "just me" to "everyone in the [floor/department/building/company]".
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KarenDec 14 '11 at 18:35

2 Answers
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Dreamhost does a nice job of this. I think their simple dropdown options are well written and say a lot. The key factors are that they try to capture 1) your mood, and 2) your level of expertise.

If a newbie is freaking out and mad, they feel more urgency than a sysadmin who needs a reset, even though the sysadmin may have bigger problems in the grand scheme of things. And it's comforting to know you can communicate your freakout as a standard option.

I like the idea of using catch phrases. But I have a small area for the form and I'll give priority to some form of symbolic representation. As a last resort I'll use some comboboxs with catch phrases.
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jpsstavaresDec 15 '11 at 9:30